Lady Gaga: I Might Have To Put Out Two Records

Following up on yesterday's post about Lady Gaga's concert at L.A.'s Staples Center Wednesday night. Talking to the crowd in between numbers, Gaga said she had been working so feverishly on new music that "I might have to put out two records" -- music to the ears of her label, Interscope, a division of Universal. Gaga said she had just come from 72 straight hours in the studio, "so if I seem a little crazy, it's because I'm a little crazy right now."

Most of us wouldn't know the difference between crazy Gaga and workaday Gaga. One gets the sense that she works feverishly all the time just to manage her outlandish persona. In marketing terms, it doesn't matter whether she is authentically an odd bird, or just faking it. Like Madonna before her, she is adept at pushing the image of herself as a freak who embraces other freaks. This creates a loyal fanbase, many of whom came to the concert (dubbed "The Monsters' Ball") in wild Gaga-inspired getups. Gaga even invoked Jesus Christ, saying that just like him, she loves everybody.

Good marketing, mixed with entrepreneurial drive. She dedicated a song to everyone who ever doubted her. To paraphrase: To everyone who said I wasn't pretty enough, thin enough, didn't play piano well enough, couldn't write songs well enough. Inspiring stuff. The crowd roared when she said, "I don't want you to leave here tonight loving me more, but loving yourself more."

Yet for all her seeming wildness, Gaga knows to stroke the hand that feeds her. She said she was dying to play some of the new songs she had written, but neither her lawyers nor her loyalty to Interscope Records would let her: "They took a very big chance on a very strange girl with a foul mouth," she said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna wake up and this was all a dream."